Collection of HP oneshots
by A.Deep.Life
Summary: A collection of prompted HP one-shots. Continually updated.  newest update: ...Love demands all kinds of sacrifices.
1. A Toast

He'd never touched firewhiskey before that night. He'd always thought of it as evil stuff, made for weaklings who couldn't handle their own emotions, and he liked having his thoughts clear too much to muddle them up with so powerful a drink. And on top of all that, the memory of his father unable to stop gulping glasses of it and then beating his mother in a drunken rage was something that he had never been able to erase from his mind – and it had effectively steered his hand away from any glass containing firewhiskey or anything even remotely related.

But tonight, as he sat in the darkened living room of the house at Spinner's End, he poured himself a glass from the decrepit bottle he'd found in a dusty cabinet and raised it up to study it.

"Oh, I'll propose a toast to the happy couple, all right," Severus Snape whispered hoarsely, before tilting his head back and downing the entire glass in one desperate gulp. At his side, his other hand clenched tight and tore right through the ornate invitation it held, embossed with the flowing script "Mr. and Mrs. James Potter request the pleasure of your attendance…"


	2. Liar, Liar

He'd had this dream countless times before. The tension, the desperation, the terror of knowing he'd lost her – it was all familiar to him.

"You lied to me!" he cried. "You said you hated him, that you knew he was an arrogant idiot! How could you marry him, sacrifice yourself for HIS baby?"

Every time, he found himself hoping that she wouldn't look at him as she responded, hoping that she would give some sign of not being able to live with her own decision. But she believed in what she had done wholeheartedly, and believed that he was the one who was wrong, and she always glared right back at him with a piercingly fierce gaze.

"You're the liar!" she fired back. "When we were in school, you thought you could play two faces – Death Eater, but still best friend of the Mudblood, all at the same time! Even now, that's what you're doing! You think you can be Dumbledore's right hand man AND the Dark Lord's most trusted servant? And you call ME a liar!"

Severus jolted awake in his bed, shaking and covered in sweat. Rolling over, he whispered into his pillow, "The difference, Lily, is that I lie for a reason."


	3. Quit

"Oh, for Jupiter's sake," Sybill snapped at her crystal ball. "Third time this week! This is ridiculous."

She picked the ball up and began shaking it vigorously, willing the clouds of white mist inside it to clear. When they did not, she cursed the gods of Pluto, set the ball down, and picked up a bottle of cooking sherry. Taking a deep swig, she focused herself on the ball again, murmuring ancient incantations. With all the unrest in the Wizarding world over whether the Dark Lord had truly returned, and the hag Umbridge hovering in all her classes, she needed all the foresight she could get.

When the incantations failed as well, she glared at the useless ball, hissing, "I just want to quit my job and move someplace where nobody else knows me. Even our esteemed headmaster seems determined to cloud my inner eye with frustration; he refuses to let me leave the castle and retire to a location more friendly to a burdened Seer."

She was interrupted by a clock chiming. Pulling her shawl up around her shoulders and straightening her glasses, she glared around her private room before hurrying off to prepare for her next class.


	4. Sorting Spell

Godric was laughing.

He leaned against the cold stone wall of his fourth-floor Hogwarts office and laughed, and laughed, and laughed. Helga and Rowena stood to either side of him, more successful in hiding their amusement, but with mirth sparkling in their eyes nonetheless. Salazar sat in front of the three of them.

When Godric could control himself enough to speak, he choked out, ""I'm not going to say I told you so but..."

Salazar got to his feet, brushing dust off of his robes. His sour expression as he surveyed what had, a moment before, been a stuffed mannequin wearing Hogwarts robes, almost succeeded in hiding his own faint appreciation of the moment's hilarity. "Fine, my Sorting Spell didn't work," he retorted. "Judging by your glee, I assume you must have a better idea, Godric?"

"Didn't work?" Helga said sweetly, unable to resist her own gentle tease. "It imploded the brains of our 'student'."

Rowena spoke up. "But the concept of the spell seems solid enough, Salazar's done impressive work on it – maybe if we could just find something to protect the head?"

The four founders stood in silence for a moment, until Godric reached up and felt the brim of his pointed hat…


	5. Walk Away

"You shouldn't have walked away from that!"

She meant to say it with some semblance of composure, but somehow the words came out in a high shriek instead. "You should have died at the Ministry! You shouldn't have let yourself fail! His displeasure will make us wish we were all dead!" She ran forward and grabbed the collar of her husband's robes, shaking them violently as she screamed wildly, "And our son, Lucius? Our son? The Dark Lord will make sure he dies in your place instead!"

Lucius Malfoy seized his wife's wrists and forcibly held them still as she dissolved into hysterical sobs. Gazing down at her with more tenderness and pain than he had felt in many years, he murmured swiftly, "Get ahold of yourself, Narcissa. The Dark Lord will be here soon. We must prepare Draco for whatever orders he is to receive."

She stepped away from him, her face blazing with tears and anger. "Whatever orders he is to receive?" she repeated in a whisper that struggled to remain steady. "We both KNOW what orders he will be given, Lucius. And he cannot succeed where so many others have failed."

They stood apart as she stared at him silently, her glare an unspoken accusation.


	6. Once Upon a Time, I Knew Love

He knows, the minute he walks in, that something's wrong.

She's sitting on the bed with an unpacked suitcase, meeting his gaze with eyes rimmed in tears she will not let fall, and she speaks before he can. "You know, I used to not understand how anyone could stand to live for years without ever feeling powerful, alive, happy in the purest way. Especially if they'd had love like that before."

She's not looking at him anymore, but he suspects that's because the tears are so crowding her eyes that she can't see. Still she pushes on – "But now I'm forgetting what I used to feel, and anything I try only gets me a spectre of what used to be. Even worse, I'm starting to forget why I used to care – why it ever mattered so much to me. And now you're leaving and asking me to come, but I can't…I can't go with you."

She wants him to understand; and he wants to tell her that he forgives her, because the pain on her face is too great for him not to. But somehow he can't find his voice.

As he leaves, she's still sitting in the same position - hasn't moved – and as he turns he around wonders if the 18-year-old love of his life ever be the same Petunia again.


	7. Perfection

He's not unaware of the aura of perfection that people perceive around him. Some days it's great – just the ego boost he needs to spur himself towards better grades, better flying, even more charming conversation.

But some days it's like a ball and chain, stopping him from admitting that he doesn't know or asking for help. Because his reputation causes everyone to watch him more closely, and to do either of those things would start "What! _Cedric_ needs help?" teases that always sting when they collide with his perfect image.

So he stands, in the spotlight. Self-sufficient and all alone.


	8. Valentine

One day not long after the Trio have left Shell Cottage, after Luna and Dean have also arrived to join the congregation at Aunt Muriel's, he finds himself alone with Ginny.

"You seem okay," he says without really thinking, and she turns that unflinching, unapologetic gaze on him.

"I'm sorry?"

It's probably not his brightest moment, but he presses on to explain himself anyway. "Your – boyfriend? – is off fighting a guerilla war against He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named with god-knows-what as his plan, and he didn't even take you with. But you seem okay."

Her eyes narrow. "Yeah, well, at some point you realize that you're not always going to beat out everyone else, or be number one, in someone's life. And you either accept that, or you go find someone else who'll make you feel like you're number one in theirs, even if you don't really love them as much. I didn't do that. I chose love."

He tries not to, but he just has to ask. "So there _is_ still love there? Because quite frankly, I can't see it from where I'm sitting."

When he meets her eyes, they're filled with half-laughing alarm, wary but unable to stop the disarmingly honest reply that follows. "I'm up to my ears in it."


End file.
